OpenAI hands Ukraine Daybreak to guard civilian networks after about 6,000 cyber incidents

OpenAI made Daybreak, its AI system for detecting and fixing software flaws, available to the Ukrainian government for free. The target is defending hospitals, power plants, and telecom networks from Russian cyberattacks.

The deal went public on September 23 at the UN General Assembly. Ukraine’s incident responders registered about 6,000 cyber incidents last year.

Kushneruk and Baker announce the deal at the UN General Assembly

The arrangement goes through Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. It was announced on the sidelines of the UN gathering by Dmytro Kushneruk, Ukraine’s Consul General in San Francisco, and Sasha Baker, OpenAI’s head of national security policy.

Access to GPT-5.6 Sol is bundled with Daybreak. Ukrainian teams can use Daybreak to scan old code, investigate suspicious activity, confirm code flaws, and test patches before their release.

“Ukraine is already on the front line, and its defenders need support now,” Baker said. “We want to put more capable tools in their hands to help them find and fix vulnerabilities and protect the critical networks people depend on.”

The figure of 6,000 is from CERT-UA, the national incident response team of Ukraine. That is up 37% from 2024, with local authorities and government agencies taking the brunt.

The incidents were aimed at hospital systems, the energy sector, and telecommunications, OpenAI said.

“Protecting civilian infrastructure means defending it against both physical and digital attacks, so people can continue to live, work and access essential services,” stated George Osborne, head of OpenAI for Countries.

CERT Polska found six router flaws with the same models

The Ukrainian offer follows OpenAI’s September 3 announcement of a plan to provide $1 billion in subsidized access to Daybreak, with a promise to expand the program to partner countries within weeks.

That launch came with Astra, OpenAI’s first model designated “Critical” for cyber risk under its own safety framework. Daybreak’s vetted testers got it first.

Daybreak splits users into a defensive Blue tier and a closely watched Red tier for authorized vulnerability research. OpenAI set out this tiered division when it launched GPT-5.6-Cyber in August.

The ChatGPT maker says its cyber AI models are already being used by defense forces in France, Germany, and Poland.

The EU agency ENISA has used them to find vulnerabilities in software used by EU institutions, and they have all been fixed. CERT Polska exposed six vulnerabilities in third-party router software that the vendor has patched.

Sam Altman also pitched Daybreak to US utilities this month. Ukraine already uses AI tools from competitors of OpenAI, including Google.

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